A Tyumen commercial court has partially satisfied a $16-billion damage recovery suit filed by Russian-British joint venture TNK-BP minority shareholder Andrei Prokhorov against BP, a court official told RIA Novosti on Friday.
The court obliged BP to pay 100.4 billion rubles ($3.08 billion) to Prokhorov as a recovery for the TNK-BP's minority who consider his interests were infringed by BP's failure to finalize a $16-billion share swap and an Arctic shelf development deal with Russian major Rosneft as TNK-BP could have participated in the projects.
The deal fell through after AAR, which represents four billionaires of Russian origin, said it broke TNK-BP's 2008 shareholder agreement under which the partners had to offer all energy projects to TNK-BP first.
Prokhorov had filed a suit against BP nominees who have served on the board of TNK-BP Holding, Peter Charow and Richard Sloan. Prokhorov said they knew about talks between BP and Rosneft and must have informed TNK-BP of the opportunity.
Lawyer Konstantin Lukoyanov, who represents BP at the trial, said he considered Prokhorov's suit a "corporate attack" and the company would appeal the court's decision.
"All the arguments of the plaintiff are based on absurd assumptions and have nothing to do with the interests of TNK-BP and its shareholders. TNK-BP has not suffered any damages and could not incur any losses so any discussion on this topic is speculation," Lukoyanov said.
"The court's decision is even more absurd taking into account the official statement of Rosneft that TNK-BP has never been considered as a possible participant for projects in the Arctic shelf," the lawyer added.
BP and AAR have been locked in a long-running dispute over the management of their Russian joint venture, which resulted in the replacement of the former TNK-BP CEO Robert Dudley in 2008. Dudley has subsequently become head of BP.
Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman resigned as TNK-BP's CEO in late May due to what he called a collapse of corporate management.
TNK-BP was unavailable for an immediate comment for RIA Novosti.
